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Revised and expanded in this third edition, American Legal History now features a new coauthor, James Ely, who is a specialist in the history of property rights. This highly acclaimed text provides a comprehensive selection of the most important documents in the field, which integrates the history of public and private law from America's colonial origins to the present. Devoting special attention to the interaction of social and legal change, it shows how legal ideas developed in tandem with specific historical events and reveals a rich legal culture unique to America. The book also deals with state and federal courts and looks at the relationship between the development of American society, politics, and economy, and how it relates to the evolution of American law. Introductions and instructive headnotes accompany each document, tying legal developments to broader historical themes and providing a social and political context essential to an understanding of the history of law in America. American Legal History, Third Edition, offers fresh material throughout and increased coverage of cases on such topics as slave law, politics, and terrorism. The authors have incorporated more cases dealing with minority rights, including Native American and Asian American rights, women's rights, and gender and gay rights. Two new chapters have been added to this edition: one on law and economics in modern America, including a discussion of the new federalism, and the other on law, politics, and terrorism, including a full discussion of the USA PATRIOT Act. The "since 1945" portion includes up-to-date material and current cases. The section on English background and colonial America has been expanded. In addition, there is new material on the most recent developments in American constitutional and legal history. Setting the legal challenges of the twenty-first century in a broad context, American Legal History, Third Edition, is an essential text for students and teachers of constitutional and legal history, the judicial process, and the effects of society on law.

Preface

Law In The Morning Of America: The Beginnings Of American Law, To 1760

The English Heritage and Magna Charta

Magna Charta (1215)

Note: Due Process and the Law of the Land

Note: The Reformation and Tudor England

The Virginia Colony

Dale's Laws (1611)

The Beginnings of Constitutionalism in America

The Mayflower Compact (1620)

""A Model of Christian Charity"" (1629)

Note: Roger Williams and Religious Liberty

""The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience"" (1644)

Roger Williams to The Town of Providence (1655)

The Laws of Liberties of Massachusetts (1648)

The Rhode Island Patent (1643)

Note: England's Civil War

The Post-Restoration Colonial Governments

The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669)

First Frame of Government (1682)

The New-York Charter of Libertyes (1683)

The Glorious Revolution

Note: The Case of the Seven Bishops (1688)

The English Bill of Rights (1689)

""Second Treatise of Civil Government"" (1690)

The Sources of Law in America

Note: Reception of the Common Law

William Blackstone on Reception (1765)

Giddings v. Brown (1657)

Law and Colonial Society

Morality and Colonial Law

""A Horrible Case of Beastiality,"" Plymouth Colony (1642)

Marriage, Women, and the Family

William Blackstone on Women in the Eyes of the Law (1765)

Note: Women and the Law in the Colonial Era

An Act Concerning Feme-Sole Traders (1718)

Widows of New York and Taxes

Children, Apprenticeship, Education

Virginia Apprenticeship Statute (1646)

Children's Education in Plymouth (1685)

White Indentured Servitude

In re Wm. Wootton and John Bradye (1640)

South Carolina Servant Regulations (1761)

Slavery

In re John Punch (1640)

In re Emanuel (1640)

Re Mulatto (1656)

Re Edward Mozingo (1672)

Moore vs. Light (1673)

Against Runaway Servants, Act XVI (1657-8)

How Long Servants Without Indentures Shall Serve, Act XVIII (1657-1658)

An Act for the Dutch and All Other Strangers for Trading to This Place, Act XVI (1659-1660)

Run-aways, Act CII (1661-1662)

Negro Women's Children to Serve According to the Condition of the Mother, Act XII (1662)

An Act Declaring that Baptisme of Slaves Doth Not Exempt Them from Bondage, Act II (1667)